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Women who complain that men won’t commit and who deplore the objectivised
callousness of lads’ mags should cast an eye back to the early 1960s. The
protective patriarchy had faded but women (especially working-class women)
were far from equal. The Pill had not quite arrived, abortion was illegal
and “dollybirds” were a disposable commodity.

The laddishness of that time was mercilessly defined by Bill Naughton in a
radio play sharply titled Alfie Elkins and his Little Life; it moved
to the stage in 1963 with Terence Stamp and, as the decade raved on, became
a film starring Michael Caine.